Learn english the Canadian way!

I'm not sure if it's the sleep deprivation, but I have no idea what to make of this. ...though it does seem to be a handy resource for people who seek to truly understand the Canadian mind.

Japanese passover in Israel

Dear all, I know I've shared this blog with you before (and it's over yonder in my links) but you really, really need to check out Shingo's passover blues (parts 1-3). Please, do yourselves a favor.

Oh, and you may notice that I am completely absent from the family photo. I think they photoshopped me right out!

Virtual Insanity

Ok, last ego-link I promise. But this one was just too funny

the flickr trail

Oh, and now you can see me here, here, and here.
It's kind of cool really.
Oh, and if anyone can find this picture out there on the web-o-sphere, I'd love to know. It's my most viewed picture ever and viewed about twice as often as any other, so I have a feeling it's been linked to out there somewhere....

Sierra Leone Photos

I remember reading a while back about having "good internet hygene", meaning that you should periodically check and see what kind of things pop up when your name get plugged into a search engine. My name is rare enough that quite a few hits of it are actually me, but it still doesn't take very long to go through them all. But this morning I realized something else: it's not just important to check your name, but also any other web names that you might use. In my case, my flickr screen name is one that I hadn't checked before, but gets more hits than any other site I have stuff posted to (over 12000 hits in less than 5 months). So I did a quick search for "departure lounge" + photo and what should pop up but this.
Of course "departure lounge" + photo resulted in about 105,000 matches, so I think next time I'll pick a screen name that won't result in endless pages of airport lounges....

weather man

They say that in Canada all anyone ever talks about is the weather and politics. Well, I don't know a thing about Israeli politics and generally adopt the "it's hard to offend anyone when you don't say anything at all" approach, but I sure can complain about the weather here.
Hot damn.
It's spring here in Haifa, and while in other parts of the northern hemisphere, spring brings things like flowers and warm, sunny days and little bunnies and other soft, cute things that make you want to take off your shoes and run around barefoot on the grass, here in Israel, spring just brings hot, dusty desert winds, hazy skies, and other harsh and gritty things that make you want to take off your shoes, tie the laces around your neck, and kill yourself.
Here's an excerpt of an email that was sent to me by the nice weather people at the Baha'i Centre in Haifa:

"Hot, dry desert winds have been given special names across the Middle East. For example, in the summer monsoon, the northwesterly Shamal blows over Iraq and into the Persian Gulf. The Egyptian Khamsin wind literally means "lasting 50 days."

The Sirocco, an Arab word for "Easterly," is a hot, dry, dusty desert wind blowing across the region and often into Europe. It is also known as the Sharkiye in Jordan, Sharav in Israel, and Simoom in Arabia. The dusty Seistan north wind in eastern Iran can reach hurricane force."

So then I did a little googling and found this out:

"Studies in the 1950's and 1960's indicated that human health, performance and mood were affected by certain weather conditions. In particular warm dry winds such as the Sirrocco (Italy), Sharkije (Egypt), Santa Ana (California), Hamsin or Sharav (Middle East) or the Foehn ((Central Europe), are associated with a sudden increase in morbidity (health problems). During these winds about 30% of the population were reported to suffer from migraine, depression, moodiness, lethargy or respiratory symptoms. Behaviour changes were reported to result in an increase in accidents and psychological illness. A further 30% suffered less, and about 40% suffered no effects."

awesome. though I have to admit, my source did seem to favor the crack-pot side of the inter-web...

I just can't wait until July when it's 40 degrees and feels just like this outside (though this is actually mali, not Israel):

rss geek needed

Oh, and the rss on my other blog is broken. Anyone know how to fix it?

Abidjan, June 2000

So I'm getting into my next project now and mostly that just means research. We've been reading about development and about our destination country (am I allowed to tell you all about this? whatever.) I'm sure I can at least tell you that I'm heading to Africa and it should be in the next 8 weeks or so.
Of course, all this Africa homework is making me think a lot about the time that I've spent there already. Especially about my time in Abidjan.
I just found out today that they've signed a tentative peace agreement there. I hope this one lasts longer than the last one... It's just sad to read things like this about a place that was once your home.

So I'll leave you with this picture. Taken when I thought things were at their worst.
This was back in 2000 and the protesters are calling for the then-president General Guei to resign from the military before running as a candidate in the elections. Never mind that just months before this, he swore he had no interest at all in running the counrty any longer than he had to (he had seized power six months before in a military coup to oust Henri Konan Bedie). So anyway, after this picture, Guei stayed in the military, ran for president and when it looked like things weren't going to go his way, he hijacked the election, declaring himself the winner. So then HE was chased out of town and things just few apart and now the country is trying to end it's three-year civil war.

Looking back, this picture was taken in the good-old days.

multi-tasking

You can all see just how much trouble I have running one blog, so I'm sure you're questioning the wisdom of this, but I've just launched a second. So, for all of you that just can't get enough of my fantastic narratives and plentiful witticisms, I direct you here.

Oh, and just so you don't get the wrong idea, my new blog doesn't really have anything to do with me or my tedious life. It's just going to be a collection of links and things related to the Baha'i Faith. So if that's not so interesting to you, then you can just keep your browsers pointed here. On the other hand, maybe you find my bloggity blogging a little too tedious, in which case perhaps this whole Baha'i thing is right up your alley...

This new blog is also the reason that blogging here has been a bit light here lately, but now that things over there are running a bit smoother, I'll hopefully have more time to ensure that baby Ishikawa has something for his mom to read him every morning.

more late night blogging

night shift is great.
Cause I spend way too much time just trying to think of something to blog about, and no time getting my actual work done.
Sadly, I've spent the past hour listening to the news of Auckland, New Zealand on bfm, so unless you want to know about Auckland, New Zealand, I haven't got anything for you.

But, ummm, how about a photo?
right. this one was taken in Akka a few days ago. There were a bunch of kids sitting around in this little alley. I had my camera around my neck and one of them gave me a funny little look, so I bent down and snapped a shot of him. That, of course, set off the rest and, one by one as they worked up the courage, walk up to me and point at his chest, indicating where I should be pointing my camera.
I got a few good shots but had to leave just as things were getting fun, the rest of my group was more interested in lunch than in photo. Well, that and one of the kids kicked a soccar ball that bounced off the front of my camera, which in turn bounced off the front of my head...
(that would be the ball there on the left)

Now I feel 95...bFM

So, remember how I've been reliving my youthful NZ radio listening days through the audio goodness that is 95bFM?
Well, now it seems to be the heavy-super-power-metal show on my beloved 95bFM and I just wish they'd turn that crap down.

bFM

Eight years ago I was living in New Zealand in a little pool house behind a large house in the posh Auckland suburb of Parnell. The big house that my little house was nestled behind was being renovated and as a result was missing most of it's walls and large portions of it's roof and I have to say the pool house wasn't all that much better.
I had a little table and two chairs, a mattress on the floor, a toaster, a hot-plate and a sink. I also had a little bathroom and just enough hot water for half a shower every morning.
Late at night I would climb up into the ruins of the big house and try to find the phone that the workmen had installed so I could sit in the dark and talk to my mom.
But there was one other item in that little pool house that made up for all the half showers and the lack-of-a-fridge. That balanced out the mosquitos breeding outside my front door and almost let me forget the time I had to dodge the bricks that were raining from the sky one morning when the workmen were taking down the chimney. That warmed my heart even when pedaling weakly home after crashing my bike during a short-cut through the Auckland domain and crushing all my groceries...
my radio.
Well, it wasn't so much the radio that was all that sublime, but the sounds that came out of it. It was all because of that little pool house with it's CD player deficit that I had discovered 95bfm.
I would listen to it all the time while I was home. It was turned it on when I got home and turned off again when I left, otherwise it was on all the time. I listened while I ate, while I read, while I slept. While I cleaned my bike and while I wrote letters home. bfm provided the soundtrack for the entire three months that I lived in that house.
After that, I moved in with a family that had a tv, and cable, and a CD player even. So I went back to listening to my pretentious indie-rock CD's and rarely turned on the radio.
Which brings us to a few nights ago and a conversation with the ever-blog-present mrs Isikawa. She mentioned that her work day had been infinitely improved by her discovery of internet radio. She now spends her days listening to punchy Australian radiosity that she claims makes the sky bluer and the sun sunnier. whatever. It's no bfm, that's all I'd like to say.
I know, because for the past 6 blissful hours, I've been listening to the radio genius that is 95bFM. Including weather, surf and traffic reports and such-not. I feel like I'm 19 again.